NAME: Leyli

SECTION: A

Directions: Craft a well-developed policy paper that addresses authoritarian governance and
resistance tactics in Animal
Farm or Antigone.
Ideally, your policy paper will be two paragraphs
long: one paragraph to explain the tactics that authoritarian leaders use in your text and one
paragraph to explain the ways in which citizens can rebel against those tactics.

Pt 1: How do authoritarian leaders gain and maintain control?

Pt 2: How could citizens respond to resist authoritarian leaders
Pt 3 (extension): Is resistance ever possible?

Requirements:
A claim about the most effect tactic a leader in your text uses to gain/ maintain control
A claim about the most effective tactic a citizen uses/COULD use to resist control
At least TWO pieces of direct evidence from your text
Reasoning that explains how evidence proves your claim
Transition words that guide the flow and organization of your response

Extension Assignment Requirements:

The challenge version of this assignment will be three paragraphs in length, instead of two.

A claim about the most effective tactic a leader in your text uses to gain/ maintain control
A claim about the most effective tactic a citizen uses/COULD use to resist control
A claim about the possibility of resistance, overall (given parts 1 & 2)
At least THREE pieces of direct evidence from your text
Reasoning that explains how evidence proves your claim
Transition words that guide the flow and organization of response

Rubrics
Indicators Below Target On Target (Entering) Above Target (Progressing)

W: Ideas: Writing lacks a claim Develops a claim with help Independently develops a supportable
Claim, Focus, claim and subclaims that work together to
Purpose make a point

W Writing lacks reasoning to connect Includes reasoning that explains Includes r easoning to connect data/ direct
:Development evidence to claim or paraphrases the data/ direct evidence to the claim
(Evidence) evidence

W: Cohesion/ Writing lacks structure; Uses a template to organize Independently o rganizes writing into a
Organization assignment length is too short to structure coherent structure
contain key components
 Includes concluding statements to
summarize individual paragraphs Includes c oncluding statements t o
summarize individual paragraphs and an
overall conclusion

W: Usage and mechanical errors that Uses resources to ensures usage Uses resources including peer/adult
Conventions distract from the claim of the paper and mechanics do not distract from revision to work through multiple drafts
the claim of the paper.

Uses formatting guide p

rovided by Selects and uses the appropriate formatting
instructor. guideline.

R: Cite Direct or indirect evidence i s Identifies and cites textual Distinguishes between quotations in order
specific missing from assignment evidence that s upports an analysis to cite the strongest textual evidence to
textual of the text support an analysis of the text
evidence

ESSAY

Animal Farm by George Orwell tells the story of a group of animals who overtake a farm and become ruled by the
tyrannical pig, Napoleon. He lies, spins facts, and controls what information the animals have access to so that they
do not have any known reason to act against him.

In order to gain and maintain control, one of the most effective tactics that authoritarian leaders use is controlling,
manipulating, and limiting what information their citizens have access to, because if the citizens do not know the
reality, they do not have any reason to question the lie.

To eliminate his opponent, Napoleon violently expels Snowball from the farm. On page 79, he has Squealer tell the
animals alternative facts that lead them to believe that Snowball was a traitor all along and that he was going to
sell Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick, the neighboring enemy farmer.

Comrades! cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, a most terrible thing has been discovered. Snowball has
sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who his even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from
us! Snowball is to act as his guide when the attack begins. But there is worse than that. We had thought that
Snowballs rebellion was caused simply by his vanity and ambition. But we were wrong, comrades. Do you know
what the real reason was? Snowball was in league with Jones from the very start! He was Jones's secret agent all the
time. It has been proved by documents which he left behind him and which we have only just discovered.

When Squealer lies to the animals, they are being given false information that positively changes the way they think
of Napoleon. They are told that Snowball is the enemy and that Napoleon is the one that will save them, and with
nothing to show them otherwise, they believe this lie.

Throughout the book, Napoleon does or allows things that seem to be breaking the Seven Commandments, but
when read by the animals, the laws say that those things are indeed allowed. Napoleon secretly changes the laws to
his will, and the animals simple minds are not able to recall the Commandments stating anything different. The
most prominent example is on the first page of Chapter VIII, after Napoleon slaughtered the animals who had
confessed to being in correspondence with Snowball.

A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down, some of the animals rememberedor
thought they rememberedthat the Sixth Commandment decreed No animal shall kill any other animal. And
though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killing which had taken
place did not square with this . . . [Clover] fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran: No
animal shall kill any other animal without cause. Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out of the
animals memory.

Control and manipulation of information is a key tactic in gaining and maintaining authoritarian control, because
the Seven Commandments originally stated (as readers have evidence of in the beginning of the book) that No
animal shall kill any other animal., but as soon as that did not apply to Napoleon, he changed it, and with that he
had power over the animals beliefs and the overall meaning of Animal Farm.

In short, if an authoritarian leader changes or removes what information their citizens have access to, then the
citizens thoughts and actions will be altered by that change of information, and the leader will have more control.

When citizens are being controlled by the government or an authoritarian individual, they resist authority in many
ways, sometimes peacefully protesting in great numbers, and other times violently overthrowing a leader.
The most effective tactic that citizens can use to resist an authoritarian leader is all as one stand against them,
because many people working together is more effective than one individual. A very prominent example of a
nonviolent rebellion using this tactic is the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968, when thousands of activists joined
together to protest the inequities suffered by African Americans.

Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations and
productive dialogues between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments,
businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations, which highlighted the inequities
faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful
Montgomery Bus Boycott (195556) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North
Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other
nonviolent activities.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored and protected voting rights for minorities. The Immigration and Nationality
Services Act of 1965 removed racial and national barriers and opened the way for non-white immigrants. The Fair
Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in
the South, and across the country young people were inspired to take action.
By standing together to peacefully protest segregation and racism, people made great strides in promoting equal
rights for all Americans. However, not all rebellions were performed without acts of violence.

In the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, the Suffragettes stormed Britain for womens voting rights. In an article
from HistoryToday, it tells of the violence that was conducted by the activists throughout the movement.

All violent acts of militant suffrage can be viewed as acts of terror. They were specifically designed to influence the
government and the wider public to change their opinions on women's suffrage, not by reason, but by threats of
violence. These threats were then carried out and ranged from window breaking to the destruction of
communications (post-box burning, telegraph and telephone wires being cut); the damage of culturally significant
objects (paintings in national galleries, statues covered in tar, glass boxes smashed in the Jewel House of the Tower
of London); and arson attacks on theatres, MP's houses and sporting pavilions. At the more extreme end, bombs and
incendiary devices were placed in and outside of banks, churches and even Westminster Abbey.

Women in Britain over the age of 30, meeting certain property qualifications, were given the right to vote in 1918,
and in 1928 suffrage was extended to all women over the age of 21
These acts of rebellion against the British government resulted in the right to vote for any woman over the age of
21, thus they succeeded in their mission.

Overall, when many individuals come together to stand for a cause, it makes a larger impact because there is power
in numbers.